President Trump called EPA before small refinery exemptions announcement

In Washington, D.C., Reuters reported that President Trump made a phone call last week to Andrew Wheeler at the EPA to give the go ahead on the small refinery exemptions to 31 of the 40 applications, with sources citing that President Trump just wanted the issue off his desk.

The small refinery exemption waivers were announced late on August 9^th’s Friday afternoon after EPA received the phone call from The White House requesting to push the waivers forward and siding with the oil industry instead of agriculture, farmers and biofuels.

“The president has heard from all sides and in the end he has had enough of it. He called Wheeler and gave him the green light,” a source familiar with knowledge of the matter told Reuters, but The White House declined to comment.